Takahashi: Dissidia "has its own challenges"

Mitsunori Takahashi, director of Dissidia: Final Fantasy and its sequel Dissidia 012[duodecim], has said that while the fighters have their roots in the Final Fantasy series, the development team is more focused on making solid action gameplay rather than producing an authentic Final Fantasy experience.

"The development team did have a debate during the initial stage of the original Dissidia project in an attempt to understand what makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy," the director told EU PS Blog.

"However, we eventually reached the conclusion that we should not be too preoccupied by such 'Final Fantasy-esque' elements.

"Final Fantasy is a series in which fresh challenges have always been taken for each game and we were afraid that, if too much attention were to be paid to the common elements, we would only allow ourselves a reduced level of freedom and be bound to too many restrictions."

The team agreed to one stricture - to introduce nothing that would jar with the series' universe - and found the freedom to do as they wished produced 'very Final Fantasy-esque' results.

Nevertheless, it wasn't easy creating such a divergent type of gameplay.

"We have put in our best effort to work out what new gameplay we might be able to provide our users, with combat action elements mixed into RPG," Takahashi said.

"Therefore, although the Dissidia series would not exist if it were not for Final Fantasy, the direction is different to many of our other games. This means that DISSIDIA has its own challenges for us to face."

Dissidia 012[duodecim] is out now for PSP, and is available over the PlayStation Network in addition to physical release.